More than 3.5 million programmes were viewed on the BBC's iPlayer catch-up TV service over the Christmas period, according to the first figures released by the corporation.

The research found that around 1 million people visited bbc.co.uk/iplayer between Christmas Day and January 7, and revealed that the most watched programmes on the iPlayer during this period were the Doctor Who and Extras Christmas specials.

The BBC also found that that there was a significant "long tail" effect, with many users seeking out more niche interest programmes. More than half of all programmes either downloaded or streamed were placed outside of the top 50.

There was success too for programmes screened by the BBC's digital-only channels.

BBC4 programmes such as the series Dance Britannia and the documentary Factory: Manchester from Joy Division to Happy Mondays, as well as BBC3's Real Hustle all appeared in the top 100 most streamed programmes.

Online research firm ComScore, for example, found that only around 60,000 unique users were recorded as visiting the iPlayer website in November when it only offered a laborious download-only service but no streaming.

In addition, the iPlayer has had large-scale media support from its first marketing campaign, which launched on Christmas Day.

"Typically, people who use the BBC iPlayer are spending nearly half an hour a day watching streams of their favourite programmes, suggesting that it looks set to revolutionise the way BBC television programmes are viewed in the UK," said Ashley Highfield, the BBC's director of future media and technology.

The BBC Radio Player has now been rebranded as the audio component of BBC iPlayer, although combined figures including audio streams are not yet available.

Highfield admitted that it was "early days" and it was difficult to know how much of the popularity might be a result of a surge over the Christmas TV period.

However, he pointed out that the most recent figures proved that Sunday January 13 was the most popular day yet with around 380,000 programmes viewed by 250,000 people.

"We have not revisited our targets as yet, it is still early days, but hopefully the trends will continue in the right direction," he said.

"If we had spoken a week ago I would have been cautious of Christmas but everyone is back to work and Sunday was our best day yet."

He added that he had been most "bowled over" by was the amount of time - some 25 minutes on average - that people were spending watching iPlayer programmes.

"Up until now most evidence of video (watching) online has seen consumption at just a few minutes, for us to see 20-plus minutes is fantastic."

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